Chapter 893
Becoming a Guardian, a Reversal of Status
Chapter 893 Becoming a Guardian, a Reversal of Status
Catherine the Witch asked Trajan the Wizard, "The Frost River breached its banks, causing more than a dozen wizards in the Eastern Boundary to enter the eternally cold winter. Who do you think was responsible?"
Trajan the wizard fell into deep thought.
“I don’t know, teacher, but I found a lot of traces of water magic at the scene. Someone used water magic to damage the banks of the Tianhan River. I haven’t found any evidence.”
"But from a purely economic perspective, the breach of the Tianhan River would have the greatest impact on Jinmian Mountain and on us, and our biggest enemy right now is the Rose Council. So..."
Catherine the Witch raised an eyebrow.
"You mean Anna sent someone to do it?"
Trajan swallowed hard; he knew how horrific the accusation was.
This is an accusation against the Throne Wizard.
From his perspective, the struggle between the two major academic factions has almost reached the point of open hostility, so it's perfectly normal for him to have such a guess.
Catherine the Witch covered her mouth and chuckled softly.
“Thujand, you are still young, and there are many things you cannot see through or understand. Even if everyone is a suspect, Anna is the only one who could not have done it.”
“Winter is coming, all things are hibernating, resources are dwindling, and all industries are declining. This is not something Anna and I are happy to see. You don’t need to investigate in this direction anymore. I’m quite certain that this matter has nothing to do with the Rose Throne.”
Trajan bowed to Catherine the Witch and said, "Thank you for your guidance, teacher."
"But we should resolve the issue of the Tianhan River breach as soon as possible."
"The breach of the Tianhan River, regardless of who did it, has directly damaged the interests of Jinmian Mountain and our academic lineage, reducing our chances of winning the Three Kings Tournament by half. If our projects there are affected as a result, then winning the Three Kings Tournament will no longer be an advantage, but rather a burden."
"Especially now, with the Yunze Council having voted twice in a row to refuse to help the Tianjiang Riverside area."
Catherine the Witch nodded and said, "They don't want to pay for it; they want someone else to pay for it. These days, nobody has any spare money."
"However, you don't need to worry about this. The breach of the Tianhan River's banks won't change the overall trend."
Trajan the wizard said, "The teacher is right."
Locke pondered for a moment and understood what judgment his teacher had made: that the Demon Winter would cause all things to decline, which contradicted the Starfield Sea's current plan to ascend to demonic power.
Taking the magic of the four seasons as an example, the Magic Winter will gradually make all wizarding lands in the Eastern Realm winter, while the Starfield Sea's Magic Ascension Plan hopes to keep all wizarding lands in summer.
That is, the state of energy rising.
Catherine the Witch glanced at Locke, then said to Trajan the Wizard, "The scale of that Ascension Project in the Starfield Sea far exceeds your imagination. I can only guess a little about it."
"Regardless of who caused the Tianhan River to breach its banks, or what their purpose was, they were fighting against the entire Starfield Sea. Therefore, we don't need to worry about this matter."
"Trajan, you just need to go to the project along the Tianjiang River as soon as possible and make sure that no one interferes with the security of our Jinmianshan project along the Tianjiang River."
"But you can't go directly there."
Trajan the wizard was bewildered.
The witch Catherine pointed out one point.
"The sealing magic along the Tianjiang River is a realm that only third-ring wizards can access. If you went there to investigate on your own and found anything, it certainly wasn't something you could have discovered on your own. A third-ring wizard must have used someone else to tell you, and then wanted to use you to tell me."
"That third-ring wizard is trying to drag me down, and perhaps more throne wizards down with him. He wants to muddy the waters."
Trajan's face flashed with panic, which quickly turned into anger.
"They actually used me."
Trajan rose from his seat, sighed, and bowed to Catherine the Witch, saying, "I'm sorry, teacher, I have brought you the wrong information."
Catherine the Witch waved her hand.
"If I were to be misled by your incorrect information, then it would truly be my fault. The fact that you were able to bring me this incorrect information means that there is indeed a third-ring wizard making a move along the Tianjiang River, the purpose of which is unknown. But the fact that he noticed you is probably because the highest level along the Tianjiang River is only the Star Ring."
“As a Grand Wizard of the Sun Ring, your [Corona Magic Layer] is like a lighthouse in the night, and every word and action of yours is under the watchful eyes of everyone.”
The witch Catherine pondered, "You need to cover it up, to have a reasonable reason for your trip. Luckily, I have a shop alliance headquarters located along the Tianjiang River. It's called [Silver Peach Garden]."
“This store alliance has been losing money for years, for the past ten years. I recently dismissed its administration and related staff.”
The wizard Trajan asked, "Teacher, do you want me to go and preside over the Silver Peach Garden?"
He laughed and said, "I remember when I first became your disciple, this Shop Alliance was a cash cow that could devour gold. How come it has recently fallen to the point of losing money for ten consecutive years? That shouldn't be the case. This Shop Alliance used to be comparable to Golden Peach Garden and Otherworldly Peach Garden."
The witch Catherine said, "To be honest... I don't know either."
“I simply don’t have time to manage that shop alliance. With my limited energy, I’ve abandoned it and entrusted it to the wizard manager. But as you and I both know, handing it over to the wizard manager and barely paying attention to it means that even if the shop alliance just stagnates, that would be quite good.”
The witch Catherine said, "Silver Peach Garden is not dead but still strong. It is a large and powerful family business. So although it lost all of its third-circle business, I remember that it still retains a lot of influence in the second-circle business."
Trajan nodded repeatedly.
Catherine the Witch changed the subject.
“But I’m not asking you to take over. Locke…”
Under Trajan's astonished gaze, Locke stepped forward.
Trajan sat in his chair and turned to look at Locke, his eyes filled with surprise.
"Junior brother...Teacher, do you want junior brother to help you turn that shop alliance around from loss to profit?"
Catherine the Witch said, "Trajan, although you are the Grand Wizard of the Sun Ring, you are a warrior, an explorer, and a plant hunter. To be honest, your breeding skills are quite average. However, your talent and level in botany are quite good."
"But Silver Peach Garden is a breeder's shop that specializes in selling individual weapon-grade breeding products."
“You lack the management skills, resource integration capabilities, and even professional expertise to run a business. Therefore, Locke is a better fit. Of course, I have several other better candidates. But I think we should give young people a chance.”
The witch Catherine looked at Locke and said, "I was hesitant between you and Zeno. However, after seeing your article published in Yunze, I made up my mind. Besides, Zeno has been at the station for a while now, so it's better for him to focus more on preparing for the special grant."
“However, Locke, you can refuse. I know you are also seriously preparing for the special grant.”
Are you going to refuse?
Locke took the information about Silver Peach Garden from the witch Catherine and discovered that Silver Peach Garden was a magical plant sales shop mainly consisting of various stores, currently focusing on apprentice-level and first-ring market.
Or rather, they've been living off their past achievements.
Locke flipped through the ledgers and found that the shop alliance had been losing money for ten years. They had sent people and changed people in between, but they had not stopped the trend of losing money.
The sale of many stores has led to the decline of this store alliance, with its assets depreciating at an increasingly rapid pace. Today, the sales revenue of this store alliance has dwindled to a mere 50 million magic stones of net profit per year.
Locke's brow twitched. He immediately noticed the unusual activity of this shop alliance. First, they moved away from Yunze Wetland, away from the Red Dragon Witch's sight, and into the Tianjiang River basin.
This is very strange, and then there's the inexplicable shrinkage of store revenue every year, which has fallen to a relatively pitiful level over the past ten years.
This is definitely not normal.
It's likely that corruption is rampant within this shop alliance, because according to the information here, Silver Peach Garden was once a famous magical plant shop, but now this long-established magical plant shop has been declining and is no longer a force to be reckoned with.
Locke gave a wry smile. He had previously been secretly mocking Solas's Blindfoot and Melochy's Magic Step for being old, but now he had to take over an old shop alliance that was even older than their two shops and had already declined.
Locke said to the witch Catherine, "Teacher, I am willing."
Locke knew that he could only get a larger share of the benefits by taking on more tasks within this academic lineage. After all, top-tier funding could be obtained through merit, but key sub-projects depended on the personal will of the witch Catherine; she could give them to whomever she wanted.
Moreover, judging from her teacher's words, she probably thought that a second-circle wizard couldn't specifically help her with anything in key areas, and that the so-called sub-projects were just an act of sharing benefits.
Therefore, if you want to get a key one-way project, the only way is to work for your cooperating mentor.
Fortunately, I can at least see a progress bar.
Because within this team, I am clearly moving step by step towards the core.
Moreover, because of his true dragon bloodline, he was regarded as a direct descendant candidate from the very beginning.
The only problem is that because he clearly doesn't want to stop at Golden Crown Mountain, he can't obtain unique secret techniques like the inherited magic of the Twelve Demon Peaches of Golden Crown Mountain or the Six Great Demon Rice.
Besides these unique inherited magics, Mount Golden Crown should also have unique inherited magics in the fields of bloodline studies and power studies.
The magic of the Power School has nothing to do with me. The supernatural purgatory of the Power School is said to be a great opportunity, a special secret realm for inheriting wizardry, but it is irrelevant to me.
However, the special bloodline magic inheritance of Mount Jinmian is related to him.
Working for the academic lineage at least brings tangible benefits. Catherine the Witch smiled contentedly.
"Excellent, facing difficulties head-on and undaunted by dangers. Locke, ordinary benefits can be obtained by going with the flow, but great benefits require going against the flow. You will reap the rewards you deserve in the Silver Peach Garden. I believe you will gain a lot from your trip there."
Locke thought for a moment. He already had two great magic spells, so he only needed to take one more clone potion to obtain a second clone.
Once I have a second clone, I can work hard for 72 hours a day.
Then I can send this clone to the Silver Peach Garden along the Tianjiang River.
After all, he was already a second-ring Grand Wizard. If he only worked hard for 48 hours a day, it would be too lazy.
Catherine the Witch casually remarked, "By the way, you've been spending a lot of time with that little girl, Rose the Witch, lately? You should know that she recently went to the Tianjiang Riverbank."
Trajan was momentarily stunned upon hearing the name of Rose the Witch.
"Rose? I saw her once at my junior brother's celebration banquet when he advanced to the second ring. I didn't remember her well at the time, but recently she seems to have won the championships of the [Red Holy Grail] and the [Purple Holy Grail]."
“Oh, junior brother, the Red Holy Grail is one of the seven-colored cup competitions of the Garden Alliance in the Rainswamp. There aren’t many large wizarding universities in the Rainswamp. They use a very novel wizarding university model, which is that various medium-sized wizarding universities unite to form a large Garden Alliance.”
"Universities and colleges have thus become part of this large garden alliance."
"The Seven-Colored Cup is the most prestigious competition promoted by this Grand Garden Alliance. There are currently eight colors in the Seven-Colored Cup, and each color of the Holy Grail represents a different type of competition. The Red Holy Grail is for breeding competitions, and the Purple Holy Grail is for magic weaver competitions."
"She's quite famous for recently winning two Holy Grails in the Rainswamp."
"What is she doing along the Tianjiang River? The Tianjiang River is humid, with high relative humidity and a high concentration of water element particles. The magical textiles of the magic weavers from Yunze Wetland don't sell very well there, but the magic umbrellas there sell quite well."
"Oh, right. The Rose Throne has several businesses that want to expand along the Tianjiang River, including some shops related to magical plant breeding."
Catherine the Witch didn't really know much about such details, so she didn't interrupt.
After all, those were the properties of the Rose Throne's academic lineage, and some of the details of the least important properties. Apart from wizards like Trajan, who were temporarily in charge of the Red Dragon lineage, other wizards would not bother to list those properties that were continuously losing money and remained unknown.
Moreover, the equity structures behind many of these shop alliances are complex.
There is no longer a direct correspondence.
Locke smiled bitterly to himself, never expecting that he couldn't avoid the witch Rose no matter where he went.
The pull of the academic battle is so strong that I seem to have a hidden niche competition with Rose the Witch, and I don't know why we always end up facing each other.
It looks as if whoever loses has to make way for the other.
This might be because the two of them occupy similar ecological niches within this academic lineage, so they can both cooperate and clash, and there is an unavoidable conflict of interest between them.
The wizard Trajan encouraged Locke, "Don't be afraid. This time is different. I remember now, the Rose Throne has a shop alliance along the Tianjiang River called the Olayer Shop Alliance. It's a new shop alliance, only five years old, and it loses money every year, requiring extra funds to subsidize it. Compared to Silver Peach Garden, the Olayer Shop Alliance is just a newly established shop alliance, not yet firmly established, and a small shop alliance that could go bankrupt at any time."
Trajan the Wizard smiled at Locke and said, "Junior brother, it seems that you and Rose the Witch have switched roles this time. You are now the representative of the established shop alliance, while she is the representative of the emerging shop alliance."
"This time you can have a commanding position and wait for the enemy to tire themselves out, unlike when your Augustus was locked in a fierce battle with those two old shops."
Locke raised an eyebrow.
That's just a nice-sounding way of putting it.
In other words, this time it was finally her turn to take over the old, barely thriving shop alliance, while she was in charge of a newly established shop alliance starting from scratch.
In other words, this time Rose the Witch is the pursuer, while I am the defender.
Locke said to the witch Catherine, "I understand, teacher. I started out selling magical plant weapons, so I have confidence in this industry."
The witch Catherine nodded and said, "That's good. You have already condensed a second great magic, so you can keep this."
The witch Catherine handed him a magic book.
Locke saw that the spellbook was called the Twin Forging Method.
The witch Catherine said, "This is a method for forging ultimate magic that I designed specifically for you. It uses one power system as its core and forges two ultimate spells simultaneously. As long as your power system can interpret your two ultimate spells at the same time, the forging progress of your two ultimate spells will be completely synchronized."
"Take this back and study it carefully. Your senior brother Trajan and I have important matters to discuss."
Locke nodded and bowed to the two of them, saying, "Then, I'll be going, teacher and senior brother."
As Locke left the office and closed the door, he seemed to hear the witch Catherine talking about "magical plant crystallization technology"...
Locke's pupils constricted slightly. This technical approach had actually caught his teacher's attention?
However, Locke was not one to eavesdrop, so he closed the door.
Catherine the witch glanced at the closed door, then looked back at Trajan the wizard and began to speak with him.
Locke closed the office door and left.
Information is something that's easily overheard; and it's always best to only hear half of what's being said.
Since Professor Ekaterina didn't want to tell her this information, she was better off not hearing a single word, or if she did, just pretending not to hear it.
Otherwise, it is very dangerous to only listen to half of a piece of information.
Locke took the information about the Silver Peach Garden and prepared to go back and study it. At the same time, he picked up the Ganoderma lucidum plant and found that the witch Catherine had sent him the location of the peach garden, as well as indicating that she had given the order and that the Silver Peach Garden had received the information that he had been appointed by her.
Because the Silver Peach Garden was the personal property of Catherine the Witch, she could appoint officials directly without consulting the shareholders' meeting or the board of directors.
When Locke returned to the underground research institute in the second dune plane, he also received a notification from the Sea Queen.
On the Water Hyacinth system, Neptune sent herself a message.
"Locke, I'll be teaching a class at the Rootcrown Court next Wednesday. The first lesson will mainly be about the Doppelganger Potion. Prepare yourself; you're required to have at least three copies of the Two-Sound Cicada Spirit Macro."
Locke already has a copy of the Linghong Imprint of the Two Cicadas, so he doesn't need to buy three copies.
A Linghong Imprint is the product of many Ermingchan Linghongs coming together. It has a certain degree of stability and can be used multiple times, while a single Linghong is usually discarded after one use.
At the same time, the green leaves of the dragon rose behind him vibrated as he flew through the Dune Plane. Previously, the fragile ecosystem of the Dune Plane had almost completely disappeared, but now, thanks to the Sith wizard's personal funds and the use of a large sum of money, the ecosystem of the Dune Plane has been somewhat maintained.
Giant golem robots that purify heavy elemental particles float in the sky.
They are currently carrying out a mission in the skies above this plane to clean up the large amount of heavy element particle pollution left in the air by Zaran Bailey's reckless measures.
The numerous oases that Zaran Bailey created in this world, once the strategy of draining the pond to catch all the fish was lost, quickly turned back into yellow sand.
As it turns out, Zaran Bailey's reckless strategy back then only caused harm and did not benefit the Dune plane at all.
Two underground research institutes.
Locke arrived at the spot where he had grafted the Four-Winged Azure-Leaf Dragonfly and the Demon Dragon Rose. He saw that the two magical plants had barely completed the grafting with the help of the two sets of witch arrays from his research institute. They were only able to maintain the grafting by relying on the verdant spiritual energy and various witch arrays every day.
It's like giving someone intensive treatment every day to keep them alive.
Locke has already spent approximately ten million magic stones on this magical plant.
Mason Witch turned around and saw Locke walking over. She smiled and said, "Team Leader, your plant's vital signs are currently stable, so please don't worry."
Locke nodded.
The grafting of this magical plant has been completed. Under its powerful grafting and healing spell, the spirituality of the rootstock and the branch has been fused, allowing the four-winged blue-leaved dragon sparrow to obtain the plant essence transformed from the bloodline essence by the Rose Throne.
However, this ironically led to a certain degree of degeneration in the Four-Winged Great Blue Leaf Dragon Sparrow.
But it's alright.
Because my initial goal was to help them obtain the essence of the demonic dragon.
What I want is to be able to use atavism on it.
The moon of evolution behind Locke is faintly visible.
However, before initiating its evolutionary process and causing it to revert to its ancestral form, there are a few things I need to do.
First, simulate it on the Queen's Chessboard.
Because if they fail, all their millions of magic stones will be wasted.
Locke realized that it would be too risky to revert to ancestral evolution.
I must first use the Queen's Chessboard to simulate a relatively accurate result, and then perform a regression evolution in order to complete my flying magical plant creation!
(End of this chapter)